Saturday, August 16, 2014

The Ice Bucket Challenge: Great Cause But Illogical Execution

If you haven't heard of the "Ice Bucket Challenge", or #IceBucketChallenge (or IBC if you're really cool), you have either moved to another planet- or been buried under a very large rock.

It's this year's Harlem Shake. It's this year's Planking. Tebowing. Griffining. Whatever- it's a trend. The difference between all those trends and this one, is it will likely become a yearly thing.

Now before you get your pants in a bunch and go all "man, what a grouch/this guy hates anything fun", let me state that this is for a great cause and that cannot be understated or ignored. However silly I think the actual Ice Bucket Challenge is, it has definitely raised awareness for ALS. According to MyFoxBoston.com, this newest social media trend has helped raise in the neighborhood of 1.3 million dollars in two weeks compared to 22,000 dollars this time last year.

The person proceeds to either challenge four more, or do the ice bath and then challenge four more people. "YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO DO IT." What, is this a hostage situation? How do you keep track of that? Do you have a timer? Do you hack into their bank account and monitor their financial activity for 24 hours? Do you hide in the bushes and steal their mail from the mailman, then look at their bank statements weeks from now?

And if they don't accept the challenge/donate and you had plans to hang out that following evening, what happens? Do you ignore them? Do you judge them? Are you allowed to keep a non-ice challenged person as a friend on Facebook and in real life? Can you follow them on Twitter still? Or do you kidnap their firstborn years from now and tell them it was "because of the Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014"?

Three digressions:

1. I would love to watch a freeway chase with the cops on the nightly news with the caption "Didn't donate to ALS.org and spurned Ice Bucket Challenge from multiple friends" at the bottom of the screen.

2. I have also noticed not all ice buckets are the same size, or at times it is something even larger (such as a tractor or vehicle of some sort). Does this make that ice bucket challengee better than others? Is that fair to those who are using personal-sized Fridgemates?

3. If your circle of friends all challenges each other and you are not challenged....the writing is on the wall.

Then most of the time, if not all, the person admits they are donating as well as dousing themselves in frozen H20. So to be clear, the challenge is "ICE YOURSELF OR DONATE $100." The actual challenge is to essentially avoid donating the money, or at least sounds that way. But the one being doused can somehow do the challenge and donate. Hypocrisy, much?

Now this next part can be rather nitpicky (if the previous paragraphs weren't already). When I see a Gatorade bath on a football field, the best part is that you know they don't expect it. The coach is either overjoyed in the moment or can end up being irate. Either way- they didn't expect it. Knowing you are going to be freezing your ass off? Um, that's on you- literally.

Each video ends the same way. The person is all "OMIGOD IM SO COLD. I ALMOST CANT BELIEVE I DID THIS. O WAIT, I SET THIS WHOLE THING UP MYSELF. STOP FILMING. STOP NOW. MOM STOP, SERIOUSLY. I'M SO EMBARRASSED. WHY DID I WEAR ALL WHITE ON PURPOSE BY ACCIDENT? MY NEW LA GEARS ARE TOTALLY EFFED BEYOND REPAIR. I CANT FEEL MY TOES." If people are going to do this thing anyway, why not dare to be different?

To be fair, yes I did donate. No really, I did. Would I have without this whole #IceBucketChallenge thing? Probably not. But once again, the bi-products of this are very fruitful. The execution itself defies logic. Does that make me a better person that I donated without posting a video freezing my ass off in ice water? Hell no. Does it make me drier and more comfortable while I sit here at my laptop? You're damn right it does.(photo credit: zpolitics.com)